23

The red wing of dawn was lightly touching his eyes.

He rose to his feet, knowing that his wounds would be healed and he would be whole again, but not quite believing it. Near him was a grail and a pile of six nearly folded towels of various sizes, colors, and thicknesses.

Twelve feet away, another man, also naked, was rising from the short bright-green grass. Burton's skin grew cold. The blondish hair, broad face, and light-blue eyes were those of Hermann Goring.

The German looked as surprised as Burton. He spoke slowly, as if coming out of a deep sleep. "There's something very wrong here."

"Something foul indeed," Burton replied. He knew no more of the pattern of resurrection along The River than any other man. He had never seen a resurrection, but he had had them described to him by those who had. At dawn, just after the sun topped the un-climbable mountains, a shimmering appeared in the air beside a grailstone. In the flicker of a bird's wing, the distortion solidified, and a naked man or woman or child appeared from nowhere on the grass by the bank. Always the indispensable grail and the towels were by the "lazarus." Along a conceivably tea to twenty million-mile long Rivervalley in which an estimated thirty-five to thirty-six billion lived, a million could die per day. It was true that there were no diseases (other than mental) but, though statistics were lacking, a million were probably killed every twenty-four hours by the myriads of wars between the one million or so little states, by crimes of passion, by suicides, by executions of criminals, and by accidents. There was a steady and numerous traffic of those undergoing the "little resurrection," as it was called.

But Burton had never heard of two dying in the same place and at the same time being resurrected together. The process of selection of area for the new life was random - or so he had always thought.

One such occurrence could conceivably take place, although the probabilities were one in twenty million. But two such, one immediately after the other, was a miracle.

Burton did not believe in miracles. Nothing happened that could not be explained by physical principles - if you knew all the facts. " He did not know them, so he would not worry about the "coincidence" at the moment. The solution to another problem was more demanding. That was, what was he to do about Goring? The man knew him and could identify him to any Ethicals searching for him.

Burton looked quickly around him and saw a number of men and women approaching in a seemingly friendly manner. There was time for a few words with the German.

"Goring, I can kill you or myself. But I don't want to do either - at the moment, anyway. You know why you're dangerous to me. I shouldn't take a chance with you, you treacherous hyena. But there's something different about you, something I can't put my fingers on. But..."

Goring, who was notorious for his resilience, seemed to be coming out of his shock. He grinned slyly and said, "I do have you over the barrel, don't I?" Seeing Burton's snarl, he hastily put up one hand and said, "But I swear to you I won't reveal your identity to anyone! Or do anything to hurt you! Maybe we're not friends, but we at least know each other, and we're in a land of strangers. It's good to have one familiar face by your side. I know, I've suffered too long from loneliness, from desolation of the spirit. I thought I'd go mad. That's partly the reason I took to the dreamgum. Believe me, I won't betray you." Burton did not believe him. He did think, however, that he could trust him for a while. Goring would want a potential ally, at least until he took the measure of the people in this area and knew what he could or could not do.. Besides, Goring might have changed for the better.

No, Burton said to himself. No. There you go again. Verbal cynic though you are, you've always been too forgiving, too ready to overlook injury to yourself and to give your injurer another chance. Don't be a fool again, Burton.

Three days later, he was still uncertain about Goring.

Burton had taken the identity of Abdul ibn Harun, a nineteenth-century citizen of Cairo, Egypt. He had several reasons for adopting the guise. One was that he spoke excellent Arabic, knew the Cairo dialect of that period, and had an excuse to cover his head with a towel wrapped as a turban. He hoped this would help disguise his appearance. Goring did not say a word to anybody to contradict the camouflage. Burton was fairly sure of this because he and Goring spent most of their time together. They were quartered in the same but until they adjusted to the local customs and went through their period of probation. Part of this was intensive military training. Burton had been one of the greatest swordsmen of the nineteenth century and also knew every inflection of fighting with weapons or with hands. After a display of his ability in a series of tests, he was welcomed as a recruit. In fact, he was promised that he would be an instructor when he learned the language well enough.

Goring got the respect of the locals almost as swiftly. Whatever his other faults, he did not lack courage. He was strong and proficient with arms, jovial, likeable when it suited his purpose, and was not far behind Burton in gaining fluency in the language. He was quick to gain and to use authority, as befitted the ex-Reichmarschal of Hitler's Germany.

This "section of the western shore was populated largely by speakers of a language totally unknown even to Burton, a master linguist both on Earth and on the Riverplanet. When he had learned enough to ask questions, he deduced that they must have lived somewhere in Central Europe during the Early Bronze Age. They had some curious customs, one of which was copulation in public. This was interesting enough to Burton, who had co-founded the Royal Anthropological Society in London in 1863 and who had seen strange things during his explorations on Earth. He did not participate, but neither was he horrified.

A custom he did adopt joyfully was that of stained whiskers. The males resented the fact that their face hair had been permanently removed by the Resurrectors, just as their prepuces had been cut off. They could do nothing about the latter outrage, but they could correct the former to a degree. They smeared their upper lips and chins with a dark liquid made from finely ground charcoal, fish glue, oak tannin, and several other ingredients. The more dedicated used the dye as a tattoo and underwent a painful and long-drawn-out pricking with a sharp bamboo needle.

Now Burton was doubly disguised, yet he-had put himself at the mercy of the man who might betray him at the first opportunity. He wanted to attract an Ethical but did not want the Ethical to be certain of his identity. Burton wanted to make sure that he could get away in time before being scooped up in the net. It was a dangerous game, like walking a tightrope over a pit of hungry wolves, but he wanted to play it. He would run only when it became absolutely necessary. The rest of the time, he would be the hunted hunting the hunter.

Yet the vision of the Dark Tower, or the Big Grail, was always on the horizon of every thought. Why play cat and mouse when he might be able to storm the very ramparts of the castle within which he presumed the Ethicals had headquarters? Or, if stormed was not the correct description, steal into the tower, effect entrance as a mouse does into a house - or a castle. While the cats were looking elsewhere, the mouse would be sneaking into the Tower, and there the mouse might turn into a tiger.

At this thought, he laughed, getting curious stares from his two hutmates: Goring and the seventeenth-century Englishman, John Collop. His laugh was half-ridicule of himself at the tiger image. What made him think that he, one man, could do anything to hurt the Planet-Shapers, Resurrectors of billions of dead, Feeders and Maintainers of those summoned back to life? He twisted his hands and knew that within them, and within the brain that guided them, could be the downfall of the Ethicals. What this fearful thing was that he harbored within himself, he did not know. But They feared him. If he could only find out why...

His laugh was only partly self-ridicule. The other half of him believed that he was a tiger among men. As a man thinks, so is he, he muttered.

Goring said, "You have a very peculiar laugh, my friend. Somewhat feminine for such a masculine man. It's like ... like a thrown rock skipping over a lake of ice. Or like a jackal."

"I have something of the jackal and hyena in me," Burton replied. "So my detractors maintained - and they were right. But I am more than that." He rose from his bed and began to exercise to work the sleep-rust from his muscles. In a few minutes, he would go with the others to a grailstone by the Riverbank and charge his grail. Afterward, there would be an hour of policing the area. Then drill, followed by instruction in the spear the club, the sling, the obsidian-edged sword, the bow and arrow, the flint axe, and in fighting with bare hands and feet. An hour for rest and talk and lunch. Then an hour in a language class. A two-hour workstint in helping build the ramparts that marked the boundaries of this little state. A half-hour rest, then the obligatory mile run to build stamina. Dinner from the grails, and the evening off except for those who had guard duty or other tasks.

Such a schedule and such activities were being duplicated in tiny states up and down The River's length. Almost everywhere, mankind was at war or preparing for it. The citizens must keep in shape and know how to fight to the best of their ability. The exercises also kept the citizens occupied. No matter how monotonous the martial life, it was better than sitting around wondering what to do for amusement. Freedom from worry about food, rent, bills, and the gnatlike chores and duties that had kept Earthmen busy and fretful was not all a blessing. There was the great battle against ennui, and the leaders of each state were occupied trying to think up ways to keep their people busy.

It should have been paradise in Rivervalley, but it was war, war, war. Other things aside, however, war was, in this place, good (according to some)! It gave savor to life and erased boredom. Man's greediness, and aggressiveness had its worthwhile side.

After dinner, every man and woman was free to do what he wished, as long as he broke no local laws. He could barter the cigarettes and liquor provided by his grail or the fish he'd caught in The River for a better bow and arrows; shields; bowls and cups; tables and chairs; bamboo flutes; clay trumpets; human or fishskin drums; rare stones (which really-were rare); necklaces made of the beautifully articulated and colored bones of the deep-River fish, or jade or of carved wood; obsidian mirrors; sandals and shoes; charcoal drawings; the rare and expensive bamboo paper; ink and fishbone pens; hats made from the long tough-fibered hill-grass; bull-roarers; little-wagons on which to ride down the hillsides; harps made from wood with "strings fashioned from the gut of the "dragonfish'; rings of oak for fingers and toes; clay statuettes; and other devices, useful or ornamental.

Later, of course, there was the love-making Burton and his hutmates were denied, for the time being. Only when they had been accepted as full citizens would they be allowed to move into separate houses and live with a woman.

John Collop was a short slight youth with long yellow hair, a narrow but pleasant face, and large blue eyes with very long, upcurving, black eyelashes. In his first conversation with Burton, he had said, after introducing himself, "I was delivered from the darkness of my mother's womb - whose else? - into the light of God of Earth in 1625. Far too quickly, I descended again into the womb of Mother Nature, confident in the hope of resurrection and not disappointed, as you see. Though I must confess that this afterlife is not that which the parsons led me to expect. But then, how should they know the truth, poor blind devils leading the blind!" It was not long before Collop told him that he was a member of the Church of the Second Chance.

Burton's eyebrows rose. He had encountered this new religion at many places along The River. Burton, though an infidel, made it his business to investigate thoroughly every religion. Know a man's faith, and you knew at least half the man. Know his wife, and you knew the other half.

The Church had a few simple tenets, some based on fact, most on surmise and hope and wish. In this they differed from no religions born on Earth. But the Second Chancers had one advantage over any Terrestrial religion. They had no difficulty in proving that dead men could be raised - not only once but often.

"And why has mankind been given a Second Chance?" Collop said in his low, earnest voice. "Does he deserve it? No. With few exceptions, men are a mean, miserable, petty, vicious, narrow-minded, exceedingly egotistic, generally disputing, and disgusting lot. Watching them, the gods - or God - should vomit. But in this divine spew is a clot of compassion, if you will pardon me for using such imagery. Man, however base, has a silver wire of the divine in him. It is no idle phrase that man was made in God's image, There is something worth saving in the worst of us, and out of this something a new man may be fashioned.

"Whoever has given us this new opportunity to save our souls knows this truth. We have been placed here in this Rivervalley on this alien planet under alien skies - to work out our salvation. What our time limit is, I do not know nor do the leaders of my Church even speculate. Perhaps it is forever, or it may be only a hundred years or a thousand. But we must make use of whatever time we do have, my friend."

Burton said, "Weren't you sacrificed on the altar of Odin by Norse who clung to the old religion, even if this world isn't the Valhalla they were promised by their priests? Don't you think you wasted your time and breath by preaching to them? They believe in the same old gods, the only difference in their theology now being some adjustments they've made to conditions here. Just as you have clung to your old faith."

"The Norse have no explanations for their new surroundings," Collop said, "but I do. I have a reasonable explanation, one which the Norse will eventually come to accept, to believe in as fervently as I do. They killed me, but some more persuasive member of the Church will come along and talk to them before they stretch him out in the wooden lap of their wooden idol and stab him in the heart. If he does not talk them out of him, the next missionary will.

"It was true, on Earth, that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church. It is even truer here. If you kill a man to shut his mouth, he pops up some place elsewhere along The River. And a man who has been martyred a hundred thousand miles away comes along to replace the previous martyr. The Church will win out in the end. They men will cease these useless, hate generating wars and begin the real business, the only worthwhile business, that of gaining salvation." "What you say about the martyrs is true about anyone with an idea," Burton said. "A wicked man who's killed also pops up to commit his evil elsewhere."

"Good will prevail; the truth always wins out," Collop said.

"I don't know how restricted your mobility was on Earth or how long your life," Burton said, "but both must have been very limited to make you so blind. I know better."

Collop said, "The Church is not founded on faith alone. It has something very factual, very substantial, on which to base its teachings. Tell me, my friend, Abdul, have you ever heard of anybody being resurrected dead?"

"A paradox!" Burton cried. "What do you mean resurrected dead?" "There are at least three authenticated cases and four more of which the Church has heard but has not been able to validate. These are men and women who were killed at one place on The River and translated to another. Strangely, their bodies were recreated, but they were without the spark of life. Now, why was this?"

"I can't imagine!" Burton said. "You tell me. I listen, for you speak as one with authority." He could imagine, since he had heard the same story elsewhere. But he wanted to learn if Collop's story thatched the others. It was the same, even to the names of the dead lazari. The story was that these men and women had been identified by those who had known them well on Earth. They were all saintly or near-saintly people; in fact, one of them had been canonized on Earth. The theory was that they had attained that state of sanctity, which made it no longer necessary to go through the "purgatory" of the Riverplanet. Their souls had gone on to . . . someplace ... and left the excess baggage of their physical bodies behind.

Soon, so the Church said, more would reach this state. And their bodies would be left behind. Eventually, given enough time, the Rivervalley would become depopulated. All would have shed themselves of their visciousnesses and hates and would have become illuminated with the love of mankind and of God. Even the most depraved, those who seemed to be utterly lost, would be able to abandon their physical beings. All that was needed to attain this grace was love.

Burton sighed, laughed loudly, and said, "Plus ca change, plus dear la meme chose. Another fairy tale to give men hope. The old religions have been discredited - although some refuse to face even that fact - so new ones must be invented."

"It makes sense," Collop said. "Do you have a better explanation of why we're here?" "Perhaps. I can make up fairy tales, too." As a matter of fact, Burton did have an explanation. However, he could not tell it to Collop. Spruce had told Burton something of the identity, history, and purpose of his group, the Ethicals. Much of what he had said agreed with Collop's theology.

Spruce had killed himself before he had explained about the "soul." Presumably, the "soul" had to be part of the total organization of resurrection. Otherwise, when the body had attained "salvation," and no longer lived, there would be nothing to carry on the essential part of a man. Since the post-Terrestrial life could be explained in physical terms, the "soul" must also be a physical entity, not to be dismissed with the term "supernatural" as it had been on Earth.

There was much that Burton did not know. But he had had a glimpse into the workings of this Riverplanet that no other human being possessed.

With the little knowledge he did have, he planned to lever his way into more, to pry open the lid, and crawl inside the sanctum. To do so, he would attain the Dark Tower. The only way to get there swiftly was to take The Suicide- Express. First, he must be discovered by an Ethical. Then he must overpower the Ethical, render him unable to kill himself, and somehow extricate more information from him.

Meanwhile, he continued to play the role of Abdul ibn Harun, translated and transplanted Egyptian physician of the nineteenth century, now a citizen of Bargawhwdzys. As such, he decided to join the Church of the Second Chance. He announced to Collop his disillusionment in Mahomet and his teachings, and so became Collop's first convert its this area.

"Then you must swear not to take arms against any man nor to defend yourself physically, my dear friend," Collop said.

Burton, outraged, said that he would allow no man to strike at him and go unharmed.

"Tis not unnatural," Collop said gently. "Contrary to habit, yes. But a than may become something other than he has been, something better - if he has the strength of will and the desire." Burton rapped out a violent no and stalked away. Collop shook his head sadly, but he continued to be as friendly as ever. Not without a sense of humor, he sometimes addressed Burton as his "five-minute convert," not meaning the time it took to bring him into the fold but the time it took Burton to leave the fold.

At this time, Collop got his second convert, Goring. The German had had nothing but sneers and jibes for Collop. Then he began chewing dreamgum again, and the nightmares started.

For two nights he kept Collop and Burton awake with his groanings his tossings, his screams. On the evening of the third day, he asked Collop if he would accept him into the Church. However he had to make a confession. Collop must understand what sort of person he had been, both on Earth and on this planet.

Collop heard out the mixture of self-abasement and self-aggrandizement. Then he said, "Friend, I care not what you may have been. Only what you are and what you will be. I listened only because confession is good for the soul I can see that you are deeply troubled, that you have suffered sorrow and grief for what you have done, yet take some pleasure in what you once were, a mighty figure among men. Much of what you told me I do not comprehend, because I know not much about your era. Nor does it matter. Only today and tomorrow need to be our concern, each day will take care of itself."

It seemed to Burton not that Collop did not care what Goring had been but that he did not believe his story of Earthly glory and infamy. There were so many phonies that genuine heroes, or villains, had been depreciated.

Thus, Burton had met three Jesus Christs, two Abrahams, four King Richard the LionHearts, six Attilas, a dozen Judases (only one of whom could speak Aramaic), a George Washington, two Lord Byrons, three Jesse James's, any number of Napoleons, a General Custer (who spoke with a heavy Yorkshire accent), a Finn MacCool (who did not know ancient Irish), a Tchaka (who spoke the wrong Zulu dialect), and a number of others who might or might not have been what they claimed to be.

Whatever a man had been on Earth, he had to reestablish himself here. This was not easy, because conditions were radically altered. The greats and the importants of Terra were constantly being humiliated in their claims and denied a chance to prove their identities.

To Collop, the humiliation was a blessing. First, humiliation, then humility, he would have said. And then comes humanity as a matter of course.

Goring had been trapped in the Great Design - as Burton termed it - because it was his nature to overindulge, especially with drugs. Knowing that the dreamgum was uprooting the dark things in his personal abyss, was spewing them up into the light, -that he was being tom apart, fragmented, he still continued to chew as much as he could get. For a while, temporarily made healthful again with a new resurrection, he had been able to deny the call of the drug. But a few weeks after his arrival is this area, he had succumbed, and now the night was ripped apart with his shrieks of "Hermann Goring I hate you!"

"If this continues," Burton said to Collop, "he will go mad or he will kill himself again, or force someone to kill him, so that he can get away from himself. But the suicide will be useless, and it's all to do over again. Tell me truly now, is this hell?"

"Purgatory, rather," Collop said. "Purgatory is hell with hope.'

24

Two months passed. Burton marked the days off on a pine stick notched with a flint knife. This was the fourteenth day of the seven month of 5 A.R., the fifth year After the Resurrection. Burton tried to keep a calendar, for he was, among many other things; a chronicler. But it was difficult. Time did not mean much, on The River. The planet had a polar axis that was always at ninety degrees to the ecliptic. There was no change of seasons, and the stars seemed to jostle each other and made identification of individual luminaries or of constellations impossible. So many and so bright were they that even the noonday sun at its zenith could not entirely dim the greatest of them. Like ghosts reluctant to retreat before daylight, they hovered in the burning air.

Nevertheless, man needs time as a fish needs water. If he does not have it, he will invent it; so to Burton, it was July 14, 5 A.R.

But Collop, like many, reckoned time as having continued from the year of his Terrestrial death. To him, it was A.D. 1667. He did not believe that his sweet Jesus had become sour. Rather, this River was the River Jordan; this valley, the vale beyond the shadow of death. He admitted that the afterlife was not that which he had expected. Yet it was evidence of the all-encompassing love of God for His creation. He had given all men, altogether undeserving of such a gift, another chance. If this world was not the New Jerusalem, it was a place prepared for its building. Here the bricks, which were the love of God, and the mortar, love for man, must be fashioned in this kiln and this mill: the planet of The River of The Valley.

Burton pooh-poohed the concept, but he could not help loving the little man. Collop was genuine; he was not stoking the furnace of his sweetness with leaves from a book or pages from a theology. He did not operate under forced draft. He burned with a flame that fed on his own being, and this being was love. Love even for the unlovable, the rarest and most difficult species of love.

He told Burton something of his Terrestrial life. He had been a doctor, a farmer, a liberal with unshakable faith in his religion, yet full of questions about his faith and the society of his time. He had written a plea for religious tolerance which had aroused both praise and damnation is his time. And he had been a poet, well-known for a short time, then forgotten.

Lord, let the faithless see

Miracles ceased, revive in me.

The leper cleansed, blind healed,

dead raised by Thee

"My lines may have died, but their truth has not," he said to Burton. He waved his hand to indicate the hilts, The River, the mountains, the people. "As you may see if you open your eyes and do not persist in this stubborn myth of yours that this is the handiwork of men like us."

He continued, "Or grant your premise. It still remains that these Ethicals are but doing the work of Their Creator!

"I like better those other lines of yours," Burton said.

Dull soul aspire;

Thou art not the Earth.

Mourn higher!

Heaven gave the spark;

to it return the fire.'

Collop was pleased, not knowing that Burton was thinking of the lines in a different sense than that intended by the poet.

"Return the fire." That meant somehow getting into the Dark Tower, discovering the secrets of the Ethicals, and turning Their devices against Them. He did not feel gratitude because They had given him an earned life. He was outraged that They should do this without his leave. If They wanted his thanks, why did They not tell him why They had given him another chance? What reason did They have for keeping Their motives in the dark? He would find out why. The spark They had restored in him would turn into a raging fire to barn Them.

He cursed the fate that had propelled him to a place so near the source of The River, hence so close to the Tower, and in a few minutes had carried him away again, back to some place is the middle of The River, millions of miles away from his goal.

Yet, if he had been there once, he could get there again. Not by taking a boat, since the journey would consume at least forty years and probably more. He could also count on being captured and enslaved a thousand times over. And if he were killed along the way, he might find himself raised again far from his goal and have to start all over again.

On the other hand, given the seemingly random selection of resurrection, he might find himself once more near The River's mouth. It was this that determined him to board The Suicide Express once more. However, even though he knew that his death would be only temporary, he found it difficult to take the necessary step. His mind told him that death was the only ticket, but his body rebelled. The cells" fierce insistence on survival overcame his will.

For a while, he rationalized that he was interested in studying the customs and languages of the prehistorics among whom he was living. Then honesty triumphed, and he knew he was only looking for excuses to put off the Grim Moment. Despite this, he did not act.

Burton, Collop, and Goring were moved out of their bachelor barracks to take up the normal life of citizens: Each took up residence in a hut, and within a week had found a woman to live with him. Collop's Church did not require celibacy. A member could take an oath of chastity if he wished to. But the Church reasoned that men and women had been resurrected in bodies that retained the full sex of the original. (Or, if lacking on Earth, supplied here.) It was evident that the Makers of Resurrection had meant for sex to be used. It was well known, though still denied by some, that sex had other functions than reproduction. So go ahead, youths, roll in the grass.

Another result of the inexorable logic of the Church (which, by the way, decried reason as being untrustworthy) was that any form of love was allowed, as long as it was voluntary and did not involve cruelty or force. Exploitation of children was forbidden. This was a problem that, given time, would cease to exist. In a few years all children would be adults.

Collop refused to have a hutmate solely to relieve his sexual tensions. He insisted on a woman whom he loved. Burton jibed at him for this, saying that it was a prerequisite easily - therefore cheaply - fulfilled. Collop loved all humanity; hence, he should theoretically take the first woman who would say yes to him.

"As a matter of fact, my friend," Collop said, "that is exactly what happened."

"It's only a coincidence that she's beautiful, passionate, and intelligent?" Burton said.

"Though I strive to be more than human, rather, to become a complete human, I am all-too-human," Collop replied. He smiled. "Would you have me deliberately martyr myself by choosing an ugly shrew?"

"I'd think you more of a fool than I do even now," Burton said. "As for me, all I require in a woman is beauty and affection. I don't care a whit about her brains. And I prefer blondes. There's a chord within me that responds to the fingers of a golden-haired woman."

Goring took into his but a Valkyrie, a tall, great-busted, wide shouldered, eighteenth-century Swede. Burton wondered if she was a surrogate for Goring's first wife, the sister-in-law of the Swedish explorer Count Von Rosen. Goring admitted that she not only looked like his Karin, but even had a voice similar to hers. He seemed to be very happy with her and she with him.

Then, one night, during the invariable early-morning rain, Burton was ripped from a deep sleep. He thought he had heard a scream, but all he could hear when he became fully awake was the explosion of thunder and the crack of nearby lightning. He closed his eyes, only to be jerked upright again. A woman had screamed in a nearby hut.

He jumped up, shoved aside the bamboo-slat door, and stuck his head outside. The cold rain hit him in the face. All was dark except for the mountains in the west, lit up by flashes of lightning. Then a bolt struck so close that he was deafened and dazzled. However, he did catch a glimpse of two ghostly white figures just outside Goring's hut. The German had his hands locked around the throat of his woman, who was holding onto his wrists and trying to push him away.

Burton ran out, slipped on the wet grass, and fell. Just as he arose, another flash showed the woman on her knees, bending backward, and Goring's distorted face above her. At the same time, Collop, wrapping a towel around his waist, came out of s his hut. Burton got to his feet and, still silent, ran again. But Goring was gone. Burton knelt by Kayla, felt her heart, and could detect no beat. Another glare of lightning showed him her face, mouth hanging open, eyes bulging.

He rose and shouted, "Goring! Where are you'?" Something struck the back of his head. He fell on his face.

Stunned, he managed to get to his hands and knees, only to be knocked flat again by another heavy blow. Half-conscious, he nevertheless rolled over on his back and raised his legs and hands to defend himself. Lightning revealed Goring standing above him with a club in one hand. His face was a madman's.

Darkness sliced off the lightning. Something white and blurred-leaped upon Goring out of the darkness. The two pale bodies went down onto the grass beside Burton and rolled over and over. They screeched like tomcats, and another flash of lightning showed them clawing at each other.

Burton staggered to his feet and lurched toward them but was knocked down by Collop's body, hurled by Goring. Again Burton got up. Collop bounded to his feet and charged Goring. There was a loud crack, and Collop crumpled. Burton tried to run toward Goring. His legs refused to answer his demands; they took him off at an angle, away from his point of attack. Then another blast of light and noise showed Goring, as if caught in a photograph, suspended in the act of swinging the club at Burton.

Burton felt his arm go numb as it received the impact of the club. Now not only his legs but also his left arm disobeyed him. Nevertheless he balled his right hand and tried to swing at Goring. There was another crack; his ribs felt as if they had become unhinged and were driven inward into his lung. His breath was knocked out of him, and once again he was on the cold wet grass.

Something fell by his side. Despite his agony, he reached out for it. The club was in his hand; Goring must have dropped it. Shuddering with each painful breath, he got to one knee. Where was the madman? Two shadows danced and blurred, merged and half-separated. The hut! His eyes were crossed. He wondered if he had a concussion of the brain, then forgot it as he saw Goring dimly in the illumination of a distant streak of lightning. Two Gorings, rather. One seemed to accompany the other; the one on the left had his feet on the ground; the right one was treading on air.

Both had their hands held high up into the rain, as if they were trying to wash them. And when the taro turned and came toward him, he understood that that was what they were trying to do. They were shouting in German (with a single voice); Take the blood off my hands! Oh, God, wash it off!"

Burton stumbled toward Goring, his club held high.. Burton meant to knock him out, but Goring suddenly turned and ran away. Burton followed him as best he could, down the hill, up another one, and then out onto the flat plain. The rains stopped, the thunder and lightning died, and within five minutes the clouds, as always, had cleared away. The starlight gleamed on Goring's white skin.

Like a phantom he flitted ahead of his pursuer, seemingly bent upon getting to The River. Burton kept after him, although he wondered why he was doing so. His legs had regained most of their strength, and his vision was no longer double. Presently, he found Goring. He was squatting by The River and staring intently at the star-fractured waves.

Burton said, "Are you all right now?" Goring was startled. He began to rise, then changed his mind. Groaning, he put his head down on his knees.

"I knew what I was doing, but I didn't know why," he said dully. "Karla was telling me she was moving out in the morning, said she couldn't sleep with all the noise I made with my nightmares. And I was acting strangely. I begged her to stay; I told her I loved her very much. I'd die if she deserted me. She said she was fond of me, had been, rather, but she didn't love me. Suddenly, it seemed that if I wanted to keep her, I'd have to hill her. She ran screaming out of the hut. You know the rest."

"I intended to kill you," Burton said. "But I can see you're no more responsible thaw a madman. The people here won't accept that excuse, though. You know what they'll do to you; hang you upside down by your ankles and let you hang until you die."

Goring cried, "I don't understand it! What's happening to me? Those nightmares! Believe me, Burton, if I've sinned, I've paid! But I can't stop paying! My nights are hell, and soon my days will become hell, too! Then I'll have only one way to get peace! I'll kill myself! But it won't do any good! I'll wake up then hell again!"

"Stay away from the dreamgum," Burton said. "You'll have to sweat it out. You can do it. You told me you overcame the morphine habit on Earth."

Goring stood up and faced Burton. That's just it! I haven't touched the gum since I came to this place!"

Burton said, "What? But I'll swear...!"

"You assumed I was using the stuff because of the way I was acting! No, I have not had a bit of the gum! But it doesn't make any difference!"

Despite his loathing of Goring, Burton felt pity. He said, "You've opened the Pandora of yourself, and it looks as if you'll not be able to shut the lid. I don't know how this is going to end, but I wouldn't want to be in your mind. Not that you don't deserve this."

Goring said, in a quiet and determined voice, "I'll defeat them."

"You mean you'll conquer yourself," Burton said. He turned to go but halted for a last word. "What are you going to do?"

Goring gestured -at The River. "Drown myself. I'll get a fresh start. Maybe I'll be better equipped the next place. And I certainly don't want to be trussed up like a chicken in a butcher shop window."

"Au revoir, then," Burton said. "And good luck."

"Thank you. You know you're not a bad sort. Just one word of advice."

"What's that?" "You'd better stay away from the dreamgum yourself. So far, you've been lucky. But one of these days, it'll take hold of you as it did me. Your devils won't be mine, but they'll be just as monstrous and terrifying to you."

"Nonsense I I've nothing to hide from myself!" Burton laughed loudly. "I've chewed enough of the stuff to know." He walked away, but he was thinking of the warning. He had used the gum twenty-two times. Each time had made him swear never to touch the gum again.

On the way back to the hills, he looked behind him. The dim white figure of Goring was slowly sinking into the black-and silver waters of The River. Burton saluted, since he was not one to resist the dramatic gesture. Afterward, he forgot Goring. The pain in the back of his head, temporarily subdued, came back sharper than before. His knees turned to water and, only a few yards from his hut; he had to sit down.

He must have become unconscious then, or half-conscious since he had no memory of being dragged along on the grass. When his wits cleared, he found himself lying on a bamboo bed inside a hut.

It was dark with the only illumination the starlight filtering is through the tree branches outside the square of window. He turned his head and saw the shadowy and pale-white bulk of a man squatting by him. The man was holding a thin metal object before his eyes, the gleaming end of which was pointed at Burton.

25

As soon as Burton turned his head, the man put the device down. He spoke in English.

"It's taken me a long time to find you, Richard Burton." Burton groped around on the floor for a weapon with his left hand, which was hidden from the man's view. His fingers touched nothing but dirt. He said, "Now you've found me, you damn Ethical, what do you intend doing with me?"

The man shifted slightly and he chuckled. "Nothing." He paused, then said, "I am not one of Them." He laughed again when Burton gasped. "That's not quite true. I am with Them, but I am not of Them." He picked up the device, which he had been aiming at Burton.

"This tells me that you have a fractured skull and a concussion of the brain: You must be very tough, because you should be dead, judging from the extent of the injury. But you may pull out of it, if you take it easy. Unfortunately, you don't have time to convalesce. The Others know you're in this area, give or take thirty miles. In a day or so, They'll have you pinpointed."

Burton tried to sit up and found that his bones had become soft as taffy in sunlight, and a bayonet was prying open the back of his skull. Groaning, he lay back down.

"Who are you and what's your business?" "I can't tell you my name. If - much more likely when - They catch you, They'll thread out your memory and run it off backward to the time you woke up in the pre-resurrection bubble. They won't find out what made you wake before your time. But They will know about this conversation. They'll even be able to see me. But only as you see me, a pale shadow with no features. They'll hear my voice too, but They won't recognize it. I'm using a transmuter.

"They will, however, be horrified. What they have slowly and reluctantly been suspecting will all of a sudden be revealed as the truth. They have a traitor in Their midst"

"I wish I knew what you were talking about," Burton said.

The man said, "I'll tell you this much. You have been told a monstrous lie about the purpose of the Resurrection. What Spruce told you, and what that Ethical creation, the Church of the Second Chance, teaches - are lies! All lies! The truth is that you human beings have been given life again only to participate in a scientific experiment. The Ethicals - a misnomer if there ever was one have reshaped this planet into one Rivervalley, built the grailstones, and brought all of you back from the dead for one purpose. To record your history and customs. And, as a secondary matter, to observe your reactions to Resurrection and to the mixing of different peoples of different eras. That is all it is: a scientific project. And when you have served your purpose, back into the dust you go!"

"This story about giving all of you another chance at eternal life and salvation because it is Their ethical duty - lies! Actually, my people do not believe that you are worth saving. They do not think you have "souls"!" Burton was silent for a while. The fellow was certainly sincere. Or, if not sincere, he was very emotionally involved, since he was breathing so heavily.

Finally, Burton spoke. "I can't see anybody going to all this expense and labor just to run a scientific experiment, or to make historical recordings."

"Time hangs heavy on the hands of immortals. You would be surprised what we do to make eternity interesting. Furthermore, given all time, we can take our time, and we do not let even the most staggering projects dismay us. After the last Terrestrial died, the job of setting up the Resurrection took several thousands of years, even though the final phase took only one day."

Burton said, "And you? What are you doing? And why are you doing whatever you're doing?" "I am the only true Ethical in the whole monstrous race! I do not like toying around with you as if you were puppets; or mere objects to be observed, animals in a laboratory! After all, primitive and vicious though you be, you are sentients! You are, in a sense, as . . . as..."

The shadowy speaker waved a shadowy hand as if trying to grasp a word out of the darkness. He continued, "I'll have to use your term for yourselves. You're as human as we. Just as the subhumans who first used language were as human as you. And you are our forefathers. For all I know, I may be your direct descendant. My whole people could be descended from you."

"I doubt it," Burton said "I had no children - that I know anyway." He had many questions, and he began to ask them.

But the man was dying no attention. He was holding the device to his forehead. Suddenly he withdrew it and interrupted Burton in the middle of a sentence. "I've been . . . you don't have a word for it. .. let's say .. . listening. They've detected my . . . wathan . .. I think you'd call it an aura. They don't know whose wathan just that it's an Ethical's. But They'll be zeroing in within the next five minutes. I have to go." The pale figure stood up. "You have to go, too."

"Where are you taking me?" Burton said.

"I'm not. You must die; They must find only your corpse. I can't take you with me; it's impossible. But if you die here, They'll lose you again. And we'll meet again. Then . . ."

"Wait!" Burton said. "I don't understand. Why can't They locate me? They built the Resurrection machinery. Don't They know where my particular resurrector is?" The man chuckled again. "No. Their only recordings of men on Earth were visual, not audible. And the location of the resurrectees in the pre-resurrection bubble was random, since They had planned to scatter you humans along The River in a rough chronological sequence but with a certain amount of mixing. They intended to get down to the individual basis later. Of course, They had no notion then that I would be opposing Them. Or that I would select certain of Their subjects to aid me in defeating the Plan. So They do not know where you, or the others, will next pop up.

"Now, you may be wondering why I can't set your resurrector so that you'll be translated near your goal, the headwaters. The fact is that I did set yours so that the first time you died, you'd be at the very first grailstone. But you didn't make it; so I presume the Titanthrops killed you. That was unfortunate, since I no longer dare to go near the bubble until I have an excuse. It is forbidden for any but those authorized to enter the pre-resurrection bubble. They are suspicious; They suspect tampering. So it is up to you, and to chance, to get back to the north polar region.

"As for the others, I never had an opportunity to set their resurrectors. They have to go by the laws of probabilities, too. Which are about twenty million to one."

"Others?" Burton said. "Others? But why did you choose us?"

"You have the right aura. So did the others. Believe me I know what I'm doing; I chose well."

"But you intimated that you woke me up ahead of time . . . is the pre-resurrection bubble, for a purpose. What did it accomplish?"

"It was the only thing that would convince you that the Resurrection was not a supernatural event. And it started you sniffing on the track of the Ethicals. Am I right? Of course, I am. Here!" He handed Burton a tiny capsule. "Swallow this. You will be dead instantly and out of Their reach - for a while. And your brain cells will be so ruptured They'll not be able to read them. Hurry! I must go!"

"What if I don't take it?" Burton said. "What if I allow Them to capture me now?"

"You don't have the aura for it," the man said.

Burton almost decided not to take the capsule. Why should he allow this arrogant fellow to order him around? Then he considered that he should not bite off his nose to spite his face. As it was, he had the choice of playing along with this unknown man or of falling into the hands of the Others.

"All right," he said, "But why don't you kill me? Why make me do the job?"

The man laughed and said, "There are certain rules in this game, rules that I don't have time to explain. But you are intelligent, you'll figure out most of them for yourself. One is that we are Ethicals. We can give life, but we can't directly take life. It is not unthinkable for us or beyond our ability. Just very difficult." Abruptly, the man was gone. Burton did not hesitate. He swallowed the capsule. There was a blinding flash...

26

And light was full in his eyes, from the just-risen sun. He had time for one quick look around, saw his grail, his pile of neatly folded towels - and Hermann Goring.

Then Burton and the German were seized by small dark men with large heads and bandy legs. These carried spears and flint headed axes. They wore towels but only as capes secured around their thick short necks. Strips of leather, undoubtedly human skin, ran across their disproportionately large foreheads and around their heads to bind their long, coarse black hair. They looked semi Mongolian and spoke a tongue unknown to him An empty grail was placed upside down over his head; his hands were tied behind him with a leather thong. Blind and helpless, stonetipped spears digging into his back, he was urged across the plain. Somewhere near, drums thundered, and female voices wailed a chant.

He had walked three hundred paces when he was halted. The drums quit beating, and the women stopped their singsong. He could hear nothing except for the blood beating in his ears. What the hell was going on? Was he part of a religious ceremony which required that the victim be blinded? Why not? There had been many cultures on Earth, which did not want the ritually slain to view those who shed his blood. The dead man's ghost might want to take revenge on his killers.

But these people must know by now that there were no such things as ghosts. Or did they regard lazari as just that, as ghosts that could be dispatched back to their land of origin by simply killing them again? Goring! He, too, had been translated here. At the same grailstone. The first time could have been coincidence, although the probabilities against it were high. But three times in succession? No, it was . . .

The first blow drove the side of the grail against his head, made him half-unconscious, sent a vast ringing through him, sparks of light before his eyes, and knocked him to his knees. He never felt the second blow, and so awoke once more in another place...

27

And with him was Hermann Goring.

"You and I must be twin souls," Goring said. "We seem to be yoked together by Whoever is responsible for all this!'

"The ox and the ass plow together," Burton said, leaving it to the German to decide which he was. Then the two were busy introducing themselves, or attempting to do so, to the people among whom they had arrived. These, as he later found out, were Sumerians of the Old or Classical period; that is, they had lived in Mesopotamia between 2500 and 2300 B.C. The men shaved their heads (no easy custom with flint razors), and the women were bare to the waist. They had a tendency to short squat bodies, pop-eyes, and (to Burton) ugly faces.

But if the index of beauty was not high among them, the pre Columbian Samoans who made up 30 percent of the population were more than attractive. And, of course, there was the ubiquitous 10 percent of people from anywhere-everyplace, twentieth-centurians being the most numerous. This was understandable, since the total number of these constituted a fourth of humanity. Burton had no scientific statistical data, of course, but his travels had convinced him that the twentieth-centurians had been deliberately scattered along The River in a proportion to the other peoples even greater than was to be expected. This was another facet of the Riverworld setup, which he did not understand. What did the Ethicals intend to gain by this dissemination? There were too many questions. He needed time to think, and he could not get it if he spent himself with one trip after another on The Suicide Express. This area, unlike most of the others he would visit, offered some peace and quiet for analysis. So he would stay here for a while.

And then there was Hermann Goring. Burton wanted to observe his strange form of pilgrim's progress. One of the many things that he had not been able to ask the Mysterious Stranger (Burton tended to think in capitals) was about the dreamgum Where did it fit into the picture? Another part of the Great Experiment?

Unfortunately, Goring did not last long.

The first night, he began screaming. He burst out of his hut and ran toward The River, stopping now and then to strike out at the air or to grapple with invisible beings and to roll back and forth on the grass. Burton followed him as far as The River. Here Goring prepared to launch himself out into the water, probably to drown himself. But he froze for a moment, began shuddering, and then toppled over, stiff as a statue. His eyes were open, but they saw nothing outside him. All vision was turned inward. What horrors he was witnessing could not be determined, since he was unable to speak.

His lips writhed soundlessly, and did not stop during the ten days that he lived. Burton's efforts to feed him were useless. His jaws were locked. He shrank before Burton's eyes, the flesh evaporating, the skin falling in and the bones beneath resolving into the skeleton. One morning, he went into convulsions, then sat up and screamed. A moment later he was dead.

Curious, Burton did an autopsy on him with the flint knives and obsidian saws available. Goring's distended bladder had burst and poured urine into his body.

Burton proceeded to pull Goring's teeth out before burying him. Teeth were trade items, since they could be strung on a fishgut or a tendon to make much-desired necklaces. Goring's scalp also came off. The Sumerians had picked up the custom of taking scalps from their enemies, the seventeenth-century Shawnee across The River. They had added the civilized embellishment of sewing scalps together to make capes, skirts, and even curtains. A scalp was not worth as much as teeth in the trade mart, but it was worth something.

It was while digging a grave by a large boulder at the foot of the mountains that Burton had an illuminating flash of memory. He had stopped working to take a drink of water when he happened to look at Goring. The completely stripped head and the features, peaceful as if sleeping, opened a trapdoor in his mind.

When he had awakened in that colossal chamber and found himself floating in a row of bodies, he had seen this face. It had belonged to a body in the row next to his. Goring, like all the other sleepers, had had his head shaved. Burton had only noted him in passing during the short time before the Warders had detected him. Later, after the mass Resurrection, when he had met Goring, he had not seen the similarity between the sleeper and this man who had a full head of blondish hair.

But he knew now that this man had occupied a space close to his.

Was it possible that their two resurrectors, so physically close to each other, had become locked in phase? If so, whenever his death and. Goring's took place at the same approximate time, then the two would be raised again by the same grailstone. Goring's jest that they were twin souls might not be so far off the mark.

Burton resumed digging, swearing at the same time because he had so many questions and so few answers. If he had another chancy to get his hands on an Ethical, he would drag the answers out of him, no matter what methods he had to use.

The next three months, Burton was busy adjusting himself to the strange society in this area. He found himself fascinated by the new language that was being formed out of the clash between Sumerian and Samoan. Since the former were the most numerous, their tongue dominated. But here, as elsewhere, the major language suffered a Pyrrhic victory. Result of the fusion was a pidgin, a speech with greatly reduced flexion and simplified syntax. Grammatical gender went overboard; words were syncopated; tense and aspect, of verbs were cut to a simple present, which was used also for the future. Adverbs of time indicated the past. Subtleties were replaced by expressions that both Sumerian and Samoan could understand, even if they seemed at first to be awkward and naive. And many Samoan words, in somewhat changed phonology, drove out Sumerian words.

This rise of pidgins was taking place everywhere up and down the Rivervalley. Burton reflected that if the Ethicals had intended to record all human tongues, They had best hurry. The old ones were dying out, transmuting rather. But for all he knew, They had already completed the job. Their recorders, so necessary for accomplishing the physical translation, might also be taking down all speech.

In the meantime, in the evenings, when he had a chance to be alone, he smoked the cigars so generously offered by the grails and tried to analyze the situation. Whom could he believe, the Ethicals or the Renegade, the Mysterious Stranger? Or were both lying? Why did the Mysterious Stranger need him to throw a monkey wrench into Their cosmic machinery? What could Burton, mere human being, trapped in this valley, so limited by his ignorance, do to help the Judas? One thing was certain. If the Stranger did not need him, he would not have concerned himself with Burton. He wanted to get Burton into that Tower at the north pole.

Why? It took Burton two weeks before he thought of the only reason that could be.

The stranger had said that he, like the other Ethicals, would not directly take human life. But he had no scruples about doing so vicariously, as witness his giving the poison to Burton. So, if he wanted Burton in the Tower, he needed Burton to kill for him. He would turn the tiger loose among his own people, open the window to the hired assassin.

An assassin wants pay. What did the Stranger offer as pay? Burton sucked the cigar smoke into his lungs, exhaled and then downed a shot of bourbon. Very well. The Stranger would try to use him. But let him beware. Burton would also use the Stranger.

At the end of three months, Burton decided that he had done enough thinking. It was time to get out He was swimming in The River at the moment and, following the impulse, he swam to its middle. He dived down as far as he could force himself before the not-to-be denied will of his body to survive drove him to claw upward for the dear air. He did not make it. The scavenging fishes would eat his body and his bones would fall to the mud at the bottom of the 1,000-foot deep River. So much the better. He did not want his body to fall into the hands of the Ethicals. If what the Stranger had said was true, They might be able to unthread from his mind all he had seen and heard if They got to him before the brain cells were damaged.

He did not think They had succeeded. During the next seven years, as far as he knew, he escaped detection of the Ethicals. If the Renegade knew where he was, he did not let Burton know. Burton doubted that anyone did; he himself could not ascertain in what part of the Riverplanet he was, how far or how near the Tower headquarters. But he was going, going, going, always on the move. And one day he knew that he must have broken a record of some sort. Death had become second nature to him.

If his count was correct, he had made 777 trips on The suicide Express.

28

Sometimes Burton thought of himself as a planetary grasshopper, launching himself out into the darkness of death, landing, nibbling a little at the grass, with one eye cocked for the shadow that betrayed the downswoop of the shrike - the Ethicals. In this vast meadow of humanity, he had sampled many blades, tasted briefly, and then had gone on.

Other times he thought of himself as a net scooping up specimens here and there in the huge sea of mankind. He got a few big fish and many sardines, although there was as much, if not more, to be learned from the small fish as from the large ones.

He did not like the metaphor of the net, however, because it reminded him that there was a much larger net out for him.

Whatever metaphors or similes he used, he was a man who got around a lot, to use a twentieth-century Americanism. So much so that he several times came across the legend of Burton the Gypsy, or, in one English-speaking area, Richard the Rover, and, in another, the Loping Lazarus. This worried him somewhat, since the Ethicals might get a clue to his method of evasion and be able to take measures to trap him. Or They might even guess at his basic goal and set up guards near the headwaters.

At the end of seven years, through much observation of they daystars and through many conversations, he had formed a picture of the course of The River..

It was not an amphisbaena, a snake with two heads, headwaters at the north pole and mouth at the south pole. It was a Midgard Serpent, with the tail at the north pole, the body coiled around and around the planet and the tail in the serpent's mouth. The River's source stemmed from the north polar sea, " zigzagged back and forth across one hemisphere, circled the south pole and then zigzagged across the face of the other hemisphere, back and forth, ever working upward until the mouth opened into the hypothetical polar sea.

Nor was the large body of water so hypothetical. If the story of the Titanthrop, the subhuman who claimed to have seen the Misty Tower, was true, the Tower rose out of the fog-shrouded sea. Burton had heard the tale only at second-hand. But he had seen the Titanthrops near the beginning of The River on his fast "jump," and it seemed reasonable that one might actually have crossed the mountains and gotten close enough to get a glimpse of the polar sea. Where one man had gone, another could follow.

And how did The River flow uphill? Its rate of speed seemed to remain constant even where it should have slowed or refused to go further. From this he postulated localized gravitational fields that urged the mighty stream onward until it had regained an area where natural gravity would take over. Somewhere, perhaps buried under The River itself, were devices that did this work. Their fields must be very restricted, since the pull of the earth did not vary on human beings in these areas to any detectable degree.

There were too many questions. He must go on until he got to the place or to the beings Who could answer them. And seven years after his first death, he reached the desired area.

It was on his 777th "jump." He was convinced seven was a lucky number for him. Burton, despite the scoffings of his twentieth-century friends, believed steadfastly in most of the superstitions he had nourished on Earth. He often laughed at the superstitions of others, but he knew that some numbers held good fortune for him, that silver placed on his eyes would rejuvenate his body when it was tired and would help his second sight, the perception that warned him ahead of time of evil situations. True, there seemed to be no silver on this mineral poor world, but if there were, he could use it to advantage.

All that first day, he stayed at the edge of The River. He paid little attention to those who tried to talk to him, giving them a brief smile. Unlike people in most of the areas he had seen, these were not hostile. The sun moved along the eastern peaks, seemingly just clearing their tops. The flaming ball slid across the valley, lower than he had ever seen it before, except when he had landed among the grotesquely nosed Titanthrops. The sun flooded the valley for a while with light and warmth, and then began its circling just above the western mountains. The valley became shadowed, and the air became colder than it had been any other place, except, of course, on that fast jump. The sun continued to circle until it was again at the point where Burton bad first seen it on opening his eyes.

Weary from his twenty-four hour vigil, but happy, he turned to look for living quarters. He knew now that he was in the arctic area, but he was not at a point just below the headwaters. This time, he was at the other end, the mouth.

As he turned, he heard a voice, familiar but unidentifiable. (He had heard so many.)

"Dull soul aspire;

Thou art not the Earth.

Mount higher!

Heaven gave the spark;

to return the fire."

"John Collop! "Abdul ibn Harun! And they say there are no miracles! What has happened to you since last I saw you?"

"I died the same night you did," Burton said. "And several times since. There are many evil men in this world."

"Tis only natural. There were many on Earth. Yet I dare say their number has been cut down, for the Church has been able to do much good work, praise God. Especially in this area. But come with me, friend. I'll introduce you to my hutmate. A lovely woman, faithful in a world that still seems to put little value on marital fidelity or, indeed, in virtue of any sort. She was born in the twentieth century A.D. and taught English most of her life. Verily, I sometimes think she loves me not so much for myself as for what. I can teach her of the speech, of my time."

He gave a curious nervous laugh, by which Burton knew he was joking. They crossed the plains toward the foothills where fires were burning on small stone platforms before each hat. Most of the men and women had fastened towels around them to form parkas, which shielded them from the chill of the shadows.

"A gloomy and shivering place," Burton said. "Why would anybody want to live here?"

"Most of these people be Finns or Swedes of the late twentieth century. They are used to the midnight sun. However, you should be happy you're here. I remember your burning curiosity about the Polar Regions and your speculations anent. There have been others like you who have gone on down The River to seek their Ultima Thule, or if you will pardon me for so terming it, the fool's gold at the end of the rainbow. But all have either failed to return or have come back, daunted by the forbidding obstacles."

"Which are what?" Burton said, grabbing Collop's arm.

"Friend, you're hurting me. Item, the grailstones cease, so that there is nothing wherewith they may recharge their grails with food. Item, the plains of the valley suddenly terminate, and The River pursues its course between the mountains themselves, through a chasm of icy shadows. Item, what lies beyond, I do not know, for no man has come back to tell me. But I fear they've met the end of all who commit the sin of hubris." "How far away is this plunge of no return?" "As the River winds, about 25,000 miles. You may get there with diligent sailing in a year or more. The Almighty Father alone knows how far you must then go before you arrive at the very end of The River. Belike you'd starve before then, because you'd have to take provisions on your boat after leaving the final grailstone!'

"There's one way to find out," Burton said.

"Nothing will stop you then, Richard Burton?" Collop said. "You will not give up this fruitless chase after the physical when you should be hot on the track of the metaphysical?"

Burton seized Collop by the arm again. "You said Burton?" "Yes, I did. Your friend Goring told me some time ago that that was your true name. He also told me other things about you."

"Goring is here?" "Collop nodded and said, "He has been here for about two years now. He lives a mile from here. We can see him tomorrow. You will be pleased at the change in him, I know. He has conquered the dissolution begun by the dreamgum, shaped the fragments of himself into a new, and a far better, man. In fact, he is now the leader of the Church of the Second Chance in this area.

"While you, my friend, have been questing after some irrelevant grail outside you, he has found the Holy Grail inside himself. He almost perished from madness, nearly fell back into the evil ways of his Terrestrial life. But through the grace of God and his true desire to show himself worthy of being given another opportunity at life, he ... well, you may see for yourself tomorrow. And I pray you will profit from his example."

Collop elaborated. Goring had died almost as many times as Burton, usually by suicide. Unable to stand the nightmares and the self-loathing, he had time and again purchased a brief and useless surcease. Only to be faced with himself the next day. But on arriving at this area, and seeking help from Collop, the man he had once murdered, he had won.

"I am astonished," Burton said. "And I'm happy for Goring. But I have other goals. I would like your promise that you'll tell no one my true identity. Allow me to be Abdul ibn Harun."

Collop said that he would keep silent, although he was disappointed that Burton would not be able to see Goring again and judge for himself what faith and love could do for even the seemingly hopeless and depraved. He took Burton to his hut and introduced him to his wife, a short, delicately boned brunette. She was very gracious and friendly and insisted on going with the two men while they visited the local boss, the valkotukkainen. (This word was regional slang for the white-haired boy or big shot.) Ville Ahonen was a huge quiet-spoken man who listened patiently to Burton. Burton revealed only half of his plan, saying that he wanted to build a boat so he could travel to the end of The River. He did not mention wanting to take it further. But Ahonen had evidently met others like him.

He smiled knowingly and replied that Burton could build a craft. However, the people hereabouts were conservationists. They did not believe in despoiling the land of its trees. Oak and pine were to be left untouched, but bamboo was available. Even this material would have to be purchased with cigarettes and liquor, which would take him some time to accumulate from his grail.

Burton thanked him and left. Later, he went to bed in a hut near Collop's, but he could not get to sleep.

Shortly before the inevitable rains came, he decided to leave the hut. He would go up into the mountains, take refuge under a ledge until the rains ceased, the clouds dissipated, and the eternal (but weak) sun reasserted itself. Now that he was so near to his goal, he did not want to be surprised by Them. And it seemed likely that the Ethicals would concentrate agents here. For all he knew, Collop's wife could be one of Them.

Before he had walked half a mile, rain struck him and lightning smashed nearby into the ground. By the dazzling flash, he saw something flicker into existence just ahead and about twenty feet above him.

He whirled and ran toward a grove of trees, hoping that They had not seen him and that he could hide there. If he was unobserved, then he could get up into the mountains. And when They had put everybody to sleep here, They would find him gone again..

29

"You gave us a long hard chase, Burton," a man said in English. Burton opened his eyes. The transition to this place was so unexpected that he was dazed. But only for a second. He was sitting in a chair of some very soft buoyant material. The room was a perfect sphere; the walls were a very pale green and were semitransparent. He could see other spherical chambers on all sides, in front, behind, above and, when he bent over, below. Again he was confused, since the other rooms did not just impinge upon the boundaries of his sphere. They intersected. Sections of the other rooms came into his room, but then become so colorless and clear that he could barely detect them.

On the wall at the opposite end of his room was an oval of darker green. It curved to follow the wall. There was a ghostly forest portrayed in the oval. A phantom fawn trotted across the picture. From it came the odor of pine and dogwood.

Across the bubble from him sat twelve in chairs like his. Six were men; six women. All were very good-looking. Except for two, all had black or dark brown hair and deeply tanned skins. Three had slight epicanthic folds; one man's hair was so curly it was almost kinky.

One woman had long wavy yellow hair bound into a psyche knot. A man had red hair, red as the fur of a fox. He was handsome, his features were irregular, his nose large and curved, and his eyes were dark green.

All were dressed in silvery or purple blouses with short flaring sleeves and ruffled collars, slender luminescent belts, kilts, and sandals. Both men and women had painted fingernails and toenails, lipstick, earrings, and eye makeup.

Above the head of each, almost touching the hair, spun a many-colored globe about a foot across. These whirled and gashed and changed color, running through every hue in the spectrum. From time to time, the globes thrust out long hexagonal arms of green, of blue, of black, or of gleaming white. Then the arms would collapse, only to be succeeded by other hexagons.

Burton looked down. He was clad only in a black towel secured at his waist.

"I'll forestall your first question by telling you we won't give you any information on where you are." The speaker was the red-haired man. He grinned at Burton, showing un-humanly white teeth.

"Very well," Burton said. "What questions will you answer, Whoever you are? For instance, how did you find me?"

"My name is Loga," the red-haired man said. "We found you through a combination of detective work and luck. It was a complicated procedure, but I'll simplify it for you. We had a number of agents looking for you, a pitifully small number, considering the thirty-six billion, six million, nine thousand, six hundred and thirty-seven candidates that live along The River."

Candidates? Burton thought. Candidates for what? For eternal life? Had Spruce told the truth about the purpose behind the Resurrection?

Loga said, "We had no idea that you were escaping us by suicide. Even when you were detected in areas so widely separated that you could not possibly have gotten to them except through resurrection, we did not suspect. We thought that you had been killed and then translated. The years went by. We had no idea where you were. There were other things for us to do, so we pulled all agents from the Burton Case, as we called it, except for some stationed at both ends of The River. Somehow, you had knowledge of the polar tower. Later we found out how. Your friends Goring and Collop were very helpful, although they did not know they were talking to Ethicals, of course!

"Who notified you that I was near The River's end?" Burton said.

Lop smiled and said, "There's no need for you to know. However, we would have caught you anyway. You see, every space in the restoration bubble - the place where you unaccountably awakened during the pre-resurrection phase - has an automatic counter. They were installed for statistical and research purposes. We like to keep records of what's going on. For instance, any candidate who has a higher than average number of deaths sooner or later is a subject for study. Usually later, since we're short-handed.

"It was not until your 777th death that we got around to looking at some of the higher frequency resurrections. Yours had the highest count. You may be congratulated on this, I suppose."

"There were others, as well?'

"They're not being pursued, if that's what you mean. And, relatively speaking, they're not many. We had no idea that it was you who had racked up this staggering number. Your space in the PR bubble was empty when we looked at it during our Statistical investigation. The two technicians who had seen you when you woke up in the PR chamber identified you by your photograph.

"We set the resurrector so that the next time your body was to be re-created, an alarm would notify us, and we would bring you here to this place."

"Suppose I hadn't died again?" Burton said.

"You were destined to die! You planned on trying to enter the polar sea via The River's mouth, right?! That is impossible. The last hundred miles of The River go through an underground tunnel. Any boat would be torn to pieces. Like others who have dared the journey, you would have died."

Burton said, "My photograph - the one I took from Agneau. That was obviously taken on Earth when I was an officer for John Company in India. How was that gotten?"

"Research, Mr. Burton," Loga said, still smiling.

Burton wanted to smash the look of superiority on his face. He did not seem to be restrained by anything; he could, seemingly, walk over to Loga and strike him. But he knew that the Ethicals were not likely to sit in the same room with him without safeguards. They would as soon have given a rabid hyena its freedom.

Did you ever find out what made me awaken before my time?" he asked. "Or what made those others gain consciousness, too?" Loga gave a start. Several of the men and women gasped.

Loga rallied first. He said, "We've made a thorough examination of your body. You have no idea how thorough. We have also screened every component of your ... psychomorph, I think you could call it. Or aura, whichever word you prefer."

He "gestured at the sphere above his head. "We found no clues whatsoever."

Burton threw back his head and laughed loudly and long.

"So you bastards don't know everything!"

Loga smiled tightly. "No. We never will. Only One is Omnipotent" He touched his forehead, lips, heart, and genitals with the three longest fingers of his right hand. The others did the same.

"However, I'll tell you that you frightened us -if that'll make you feel any better. You still do. You see, we are fairly sure that you may be one of the men of whom we were warned."

"Warned against? By whom?"

"By, a . . . sort of giant computer, a living one. And by its operator." Again, he made the curious sign with his fingers.

"That's all I care to tell you - even though you won't remember a thing that occurs down here after we send you back to the Rivervalley." Burton's mind was clouded with anger, but not so much that he missed the "down here." Did that mean that the resurrection machinery and the hideout of the Ethicals were below the surface of the Riverworld?

Loga continued, "The data indicates you may have the potentiality to wreck our plans. Why you should or hoes you might, we do not know. But we respect our source of information, how highly you can't imagine."

"If you believe that," Burton said, "why don't you just put me in cold storage? Suspend me between those two bars. Leave me floating in space, turning around and around forever, like a roast on a spit, until your plans are completed?" Loge said, "We couldn't do that! That act alone would ruin everything! How would you attain your salvation? Besides, that would mean an unforgivable violence on our part! It's unthinkable!

"You were being violent when you forced me to run and hide from you," Burton said. "You are being violent now by holding me here against my will. And you will violate me when you destroy my memory of this little tete-a-tete with you.'

Loge almost wrung his hands. If he was the Mysterious Stranger, the renegade Ethical, he was a great actor.

In a grieved tone, Loga said, "That is only partly true. We had to take certain measures to protect ourselves. If the man had been anyone but you, we would have left you strictly alone. It is true we violated our own code of ethics by making you run from us and by examining you. That had to be, however. And, believe me, we are paying for this in mental agony."

"You could make up for some of it by telling me why I, why all the human beings that ever lived, have been resurrected. And how you did it.'

Loga talked, with occasional interruptions from some of the others. The yellow-haired woman broke in most often, and after a while Burton deduced from her attitude and Loga's that she was either his wife or she held a high position.

Another man interrupted at times. When he did, there was a concentration and respect from the others that led Burton to believe he was the head of this group. Once he turned his head so that the light sparkled off one eye. Burton stared, because he had not noticed before that the left eye was a jewel.

Burton thought that it probably was a device, which gave him a sense, or senses, of perception denied the others. From then on, Burton felt uncomfortable whenever the faceted and gleaming eye was turned on him. What did that many-angled prism see? At the end of the explanation, Burton did not know much more than he had before. The Ethicals could see back into the past with a sort of chronoscope; with this they had been able to record whatever physical beings they wished to. Using these records as models, they had then performed the resurrection with energy-matter converters.

"What," Burton said, "would happen if you re-created two bodies of an individual at the same time?" Loge smiled wryly and said that the experiment had been performed. Only one body had life.

Burton smiled like a cat that has just eaten a mouse. He said, "I think you're lying to me. Or telling me half-truths. There is a fallacy in all this. If human beings can attain such a rarefiedly high ethical state that they "go on," why are you Ethicals, supposedly superior beings, still here? Why haven't you, too, "gone on'?

The faces of all but Loga and the jewel-eyed man became rigid. Loge laughed and said, "Very shrewd. An excellent point. I can only answer that some of us do go on. But more is demanded of us, ethically speaking, than of you resurrectees." "I still think you're lying," Burton said. "However, there's nothing I can do about it." He grinned and said, "Not just now, anyway."

"If you persist in that attitude, you will never Go On," Loga said. "But we felt that we owed it to you to explain what we are doing - as best we could. When we catch those others who have been tampered with, we'll do the same for them.'

"There's a Judas among you," Burton said, enjoying the effect of his words.

But the jewel-eyed man said, "Why don't you tell him the truth, Loga? It'll wipe off that sickening smirk and put him in his proper place."

Loga hesitated, then said, "Very well, Thanabur. Burton, you will have to be very careful from now on. You must not commit suicide and you must fight as hard to stay alive as you did on Earth, when you thought you had only one life. There is a limit to the number of times a man may be resurrected. After a certain amount - it varies and there's no way to predict the individual allotment - the psychomorph seems unable to reattach itself to the body. Every death weakens the attraction between body and psychomorph. Eventually, the psychomorph comes to the point of no return. It becomes a - well, to use an unscientific term - a "lost soul:" It wanders bodiless through the universe; we can detect these unattached psychomorphs without instruments, unlike those of the - how shall I put it? - the "saved," which disappear entirely from our ken.

"So you see, you must give up this form o£ travel by death. This is why continued suicide by those poor unfortunates who cannot face life is, if not the unforgivable sin, the irrevocable." The jewel-eyed man said, "The traitor, the filthy unknown who claims to be aiding you, was actually using you for his own purposes. He did not tell you that you were expending your chance for eternal life by carrying out his - and your - designs. He, or she, whoever the traitor is, is evil. Evil, evil! "Therefore, you must be careful from now on. You may have a residue of a dozen or so deaths left to you. Or your next death may be your last! "

Burton stood up and shouted, "You don't want me to get to the end of The River? Why?" "Why?"

Loga said, "Au revoir. Forgive us for this violence." Burton did not see any of the twelve persons point an instrument at him. But consciousness sprang from him as swiftly as an arrow from the bow, and he awoke . . .

30

The first person to greet him was Peter Frigate. Frigate lost his customary reserve; he wept. Burton cried a little himself and had difficulty for a while in answering Frigate's piled-one-on-the-other questions. First, Burton had to find out what Frigate, Loghu, and Alice had done after he had disappeared. Frigate replied that the three had looked for him, then had sailed back up The River to Theleme. - "Where have you been?" Frigate said.

"From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it," Burton said. "However, unlike Satan, I found at least several perfect and upright men, fearing God and eschewing evil. Damn few, though. Most men and women are still the selfish, ignorant, superstitious, self-blinding, hypocritical, cowardly wretches they were on Earth. And in most, the old red-eyed killer ape struggles with its keeper, society, and would break out and bloody its hands."

Frigate chattered away as the two walked toward the huge stockade a mile away, the council building which housed the administration of the state of Theleme. Burton half-listened. He was shaking and his heart was beating hard, but not because of his home-coming.

He remembered! Contrary to what Loge had promised, he remembered both his wakening in the pre-resurrection bubble, so many years ago, and the inquisition with the twelve Ethicals.

There was only one explanation. One of the twelve must have prevented the blocking of his memory and done so without the others knowing it.

One of the twelve was the Mysterious Stranger, the Renegade.

Which one? At present, there was no way of determining. But some day he would find out. Meanwhile, he had a friend in court, a man who might be using Burton for his own ends. And the time would come when Burton would use him.

There were the other human beings with whom the Stranger bad also tampered. Perhaps he would find them; together they would assault the Tower.

Odysseus had his Athena. Usually Odysseus had had to get out of perilous situations through his own wits and courage.

But every now and then, when the goddess bad been able, she had given Odysseus a helping hand.

Odysseus had his Athena; Burton, his Mysterious Stranger.

Frigate said, "What do you plan on doing, Dick?"

"I'm going to build a boat and sail up The River. All the way! Want to come along?"

POSTSCRIPT

This ends Volume I of the Riverworld series. Volume II will tell how Samuel Clemens looked for iron in the mineral-poor valley, found it, and built his great paddle-wheeled Riverboat, the NOT FOR HIRE.